Page 12 - Volume 19

What’s In It for ME?
“
By Chief R. Mike Warner, OFE Retired Captain,
LTake County Sheriff’s Office Communications Division
hese new people just don’t understand”. “This generation doesn’t have any idea how to do the job!” Do these phrases sound familiar? Well, these are comments I heard 40 plus years ago when I entered the fire service. Some comments
were a little harsher, but you get my drift. Our music was not music and we dressed differently than the Greatest Generation. While teaching in the Ohio Fire Chiefs Maxwell’s 21 Laws of Leadership program, we show a video of John Wayne and Dean Martin, sitting on horses, discussing the new generation. At the conclusion of the video, I ask the students what generation do they think they are referring to? Most think the comments are focused on the current Generation Y, but the commentary
is referring to my generation of Baby Boomers. I hear the same comments referring to millennials in each Maxwell and Company Officer class I teach. They are lazy, uncaring, only interested in electronics, and don’t know how to change a roll of toilet paper. Do these comments sound familiar?
Who are these millennials and what drives them? Millennials (also known as Generation Y, Digital Natives, Generation Me, Generation Rent, and Echo Boomers) are generational cohorts, born roughly between 1980-2000. They are the first genera- tion in history who have grown up totally immersed in a world of digital technology that has shaped their identities and created lasting political, social and cultural attitudes. Millennials in the United States approximate 80 million and have surpassed Generation X in the workforce according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Just as the Baby Boomers dominated the workforce for the past 30 years, the massive size of Generation Y will dominate the workforce for years to come. Millennials are generally known to be the most educated, impatient, technologically savvy, diverse, multi-taskers with a different work ethic.
It would be easy to say, “Not my problem; let them fail”, but someone had to teach us. As the leadership ages in public safety and retirement leaves openings within our ranks, we are obligated to train tomorrow’s leaders to carry our organizations forward. This generation is our future. We cannot afford to let them fail; we must teach our traditions and how to lead. We need to discover how to motivate them to want to lead and teach them what it takes to become a leader. Labeling this generation as lazy and uncaring does not fix the problem. Millennials want to learn and develop their skills. Meaningful work, high pay and a sense of accomplishment are important to this generation. Those values are not much different than those of our generation and we had people mentor us along the way.
So, how do we accomplish this? In John Maxwell’s book 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership - Law of Addition states: How to see the way a person became a leader is to ask these questions: Who they are; who do they know; what do they know; what do they feel; where they’ve been; past successes; and what they can do? Maxwell
Law of Connection states, “True leaders touch a heart before they ask for a hand.” The stronger the relationship and connection between individuals, the more likely
the follower will want to help the leader. As a leader who wants to mentor this generation, there are six keys to connecting with the individual: by personal authentic- ity, relationship, approachability, mutual respect, belief in people, and meaning and depth. Powerful words, but if we are to succeed in leaving our organization to the
Author Bio
R. Mike Warner has spent
most of his adult life in public service. He served in the US Army from 1968-1971, including overseas tours in Vietnam (2 tours, 19 months) and Germany (8 months). He continued his military service as a member of the Ohio Army National Guard from 1978-1987. Warner has spent 40 years in the fire service, working his way up through the ranks from volunteer fire fighter to Chief in Hambden Township, Ohio before accepting the position of Fire Chief for Concord Township, Lake County, Ohio
in 1995, retiring as Fire Chief in January 2016. In January 2016, Warner accepted a position with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office as Captain in charge of Central Communications. Warner has
a degree in Fire Science from Lakeland Community College, attended Columbia Southern University and is graduate of the Ohio Fire Executive Program.
He received the state of Ohio
Fire Marshal Hall of Fame Distinguished Service Award September 2015 and the Ohio VFW Firefighter of the Year award 2015-2016.
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